Author's Note: Hiya! Thank you to everyone who has supported this story by reviewing and favoriting it, you are all my muses! Enjoy!
Chapter Five: The Dream, The Chat, and the Empty House
"You haven't been yourself, Harry. Are you feeling well?" Luna asked, startling Harry from his thoughts. Her eyes widened suddenly, and she leaned forward, lowering her voice to a whisper as she asked, "Have the wizzsnorps gotten to you? Father says that vanilla beans are the most effective way to keep them from sneaking into your head. I can make some earrings for you, if you'd like. Or perhaps wrap them around your classes if you'd prefer."
His lips twitched. "No, Luna, it's nothing like that."
They sat together on the floor of the kitchens, legs cross as Argos sat between them, tearing into a slab of roast beef between his massive paws. He growled as he tore into the meat, an insatiable sort of hunger that made Harry suspect the dog was not used to eating regularly still.
Luna frowned, sighing. "Oh. Wizzsnorps would be easier to deal with than if you were just sad," she said, a wistful look about her as if she preferred the imaginary ailments. A game of play pretend. "Why are you sad then?"
He shrugged, feeling all at once uncomfortable. He knew Luna cared about him, and that she was only worried about him. But the question placed him in an odd position. The same position he had been in when Dumbledore sat before him and he couldn't tell him the truth and confess to his sins. What was he to say? He couldn't very well tell her that a young Lord Voldemort has been harassing him and just recently extended an invitation for Harry to live with him?
It was bizarre from all facets, and even Luna might consider it as such.
"Just...miss Hogwarts and Ron is all," he lied, averting his gaze and settling it on Argos, the creature looking at him with such scrutiny that he felt as if he too knew he was lying. He reached out, running a hand over the soft head.
"You're always so sad though. I never say anything because I thought you might like your privacy, but well, I like to consider you a friend after all this time. I may not have much experience with it, but it's my understanding that friends share what they're going through with each other."
He looked up at her, opening and closing his mouth as if unsure of what to say, the words not quite right. She had turned to look away from him, focusing instead on her fingers as she twirled them around the ends of her braided hair, creating perfect curls. There was a pinkness to her pale skin, a blush. Oh.
She was so unusual, with a distinct air of aloofness between her explanation of the mating pattern of nargles that it was easy enough to forget she had been a Ravenclaw. She was intuitive, more so than most, and while her thought process might have differed from the norm she would still always come to the same conclusion. If not faster.
"We are friends. And you're right," Harry said, hissing out a breath of air lowly, relief. He could feel the ball of tightly wound wire within his chest loosen, slack easing on its strangulation. "It's hard to talk about it, is all."
Luna said nothing, though she had looked at him once more, her gray eyes as indiscernible as ever.
"Someone offered me to live with them this summer instead of with the Dursleys," he explained, settling a hand on Argos's back as he began to whine. "I'd get a whole room to myself, and the freedom of not living with my aunt and uncle." He left the part out about the bruises, nights spent where he was deprived of food and forced to lay within the closet, knees knocking his chest as he curled up. Too tall to fit within the cupboard that had been his home for twelve years.
"The problem is, the person who offered it isn't very good. He's hurt people before," he said simply, the ache behind his eye flaring before waning, turning into a present and irritating prod.
She frowned deeply, the expression looking strange and out of place on her face. He regretted his words immediately, regretted that he had been the cause of such a stern, sorrow filled expression.
She leaned forward. "Have they hurt you, Harry?"
"Not physically," he answered after some thought. The Dursleys were the only one who harmed him in such a manner, but he pushed the notion aside. Tom may not have harmed him, but he had harmed others. How many before he had been trapped in the diary? How many since he had been freed? Ginny was all he knew for certain, and that was enough.
Luna leaned back onto her bottom, relieved to learn that Harry had not been hurt. "Well, they can't be all bad. If they're offering their home to you, then you must mean a great deal to them. They care about you."
Harry snorted derisively, running a hand through his untidy locks. "He doesn't care about me, not really. He pretends he does but..." he trailed off, propping his elbow on his knee and curling his fingers around his chin. After a moment, he added, "And he is all bad."
"Father says that good and bad is a matter of perspective," Luna said simply, a measured quality to her voice that made it seem as if she were talking about something as banal as the weather as opposed to theorizing on the psychology of man. "Even our enemies, when they rally against our beliefs, are only doing so because they are defending their beliefs."
Now it was Harry's turn to frown, the severe expression seemingly decidedly more natural and at home on him. "You're not...making excuses for bad people, are you?"
If she was bothered by the suspicious question, she did not show it, instead saying, "It's just easier to believe that even people who do bad things maybe don't see themselves as so bad. I'd hate to think that someone does bad, knowing it's bad in every context, and still following through." When Harry said nothing, merely fixed her with narrowed, confused eyes, she added, "Everyone has some good. And you might be his good, is all."
Harry thought back to the moment he awoke in the bathroom, blood staining his hands and the soles of his feet. "Well, even so, he's not my good."
-xXx-
The room was cast in shadows, save for the spot directly before the fireplace, flames roaring hungrily from within. A rug with an ornate pattern that looked like it had once been very expensive but had now seen better days was placed on the floor before it, a leather armchair positioned on top of it so that the chair was made almost uncomfortably warm from the heat of the fire. But whoever sat within it did not seem to mind; perhaps they enjoyed the heat or simply couldn't feel it, nerve endings deadened or nonexistent.
Whoever it was, Harry could not see well from his vantage point on the floor. His body was long, stretched out to impossible lengths and curled around him. Where was he? How had he gotten here?
"I'm s-so sorry, Master," a man said, sitting on his knees and nervously worrying his hands together, tugging at his jumper. He was plump, with thinning hair that was almost colorless and beady eyes that glistened, dampened.
"Enough," a voice spoke, firm yet cold and pitched. "There are more pressing matters to deal with in the time being."
Harry shook his head at the sound, as if all heat and warmth had been siphoned from the room, turning the entire world around him to ice and hollowness. Whatever sat within the chair wasn't human. It was some creature, a monster.
"Make yourself useful, Wormtail, and dispose of her, she has given us all we need," the voice- man, creature, demon?- hissed. "Tomorrow we will free him from his imprisonment. There is much work to do in preparation."
The squat man- Wormtail- rose his head, his lower lip trembling. "Preparation, my Lord?"
The man laughed, a hollow and frozen laugh that made Harry wish to curl his body around himself even tighter. "For my return. All will be revealed in good time, and you will be given the very honorable position of assisting me with it."
Wormtail blinked sheepishly, lips twisting as he said, "Yes, Master, is it an honor I-"
"Silence! You have much to make up to me, Wormtail, and you owe me a great deal. Do not see it as me honoring you so much as you needing to prove yourself worthy. Now, I'm weary and wish to retire for the evening. You are to milk Nagini for me. But first, Nagini- dinner."
And Harry was moving- against his want and desire, his impossibly long body slunk forward. Wormtail stepped aside as Harry approached, looking massive from the floor, and then he was rising, curving unto himself as he stood over a woman-
A body.
Her skin was pale and sallow, a sickly sheen of sweat clinging to her. Black hair was strewn across her face, dampened, though he could still see her eyes, wide and glassy. The pupil seemed small and shrunken as if she had last stared into a brilliant light or the sun itself. Her mouth was wretched open, tongue lolling out to the side. It was still wet, and Harry wished to recoil, to move as far away from her as he could. Far away from Wormtail and the monster within the chair.
But he was only moving closer, lurching until he sunk his fangs into flesh, until bone crunched and splintered-
There was screaming, anguished cries, and for a horrific, terrifying moment, he thought that he was wrong. That the woman was alive after all and was crying out as he consumed her, tearing flesh from muscle from sinew-
"Harry!"
He opened his eyes and sat up, panting heavily. He was in his bed in the south wing, the comforting and pressing weight on him as Argos sat on his legs, whining in concern. A light had been turned on, though it appeared dim through his thick maroon curtains, muffled voices filling the room.
"Wus all the screamin' bout?"
"Potter? You okay?"
He couldn't breathe, the room was suffocating, the air too thin, his lungs not expanding no matter how heavily he breathed in. He was shivering despite the heat that surrounded him, the sweat that made his pajama shirt cling to him, his hair press to his forehead. But most distracting was his scar, which burned and seared so painfully that he squinted his eyes, pressed a hand to it uselessly. It felt as if someone had heated a metal rod before thrusting it forward, stabbing and piercing into his skull.
A hand still pressed to his head, he reached out and shoved the curtain away, trying to step away from his bed only to tumble to the floor, his feet entangled in the blankets that he had pulled with him.
Several voices called to him, footsteps thudded across the floor, making the pain in his skull greater, more magnified.
"The screaming-" Harry mumbled, hands tugging and pulling at him. "Where is she?"
"She?" a voice said, a Beauxbatons student named Henri. "Harry, you were the one screaming."
Harry steadied himself, lowering his hand and forcing himself to open his eyes. To see that he was laying on the floor of his dormitories, not from the floor of the unknown room where a monster with a cold voice spoke to a man named Wormtail. Several faces loomed over him, and he swallowed, suddenly embarrassed by the scene he created. The silence that filled the room as there was no woman screaming to be saved. No serpent consuming her.
He sat up, pushing his hair away from his ears, his hand wet from the saturated locks. "Sorry, nightmare," he mumbled apologetically, hiding his reddening cheeks. It had felt so real...
His roommates exchanged glances among themselves, but he ignored them, pulling himself up and onto his bed, even though he desperately wanted to shower. But Argos was still waiting for him, brown eyes wide as he sat hidden in the shadow of his curtained bed.
He pulled the curtain closed, sat in silence for several minutes as the light was turned out, his roommates grumbling as they returned to bed. The dog shifted up from the foot of his bed, resting a paw on Harry's knee as he whined lowly, eyes wide.
Harry pet him. "You would not believe the dream I had," he muttered, knowing it was foolish to talk to a dog, but feeling better all the same.
-xXx-
The next day, Harry sat alone in the dormitories, thankful for the quiet and the weekend which drew the students out to the courtyard or the library or wherever else they chose to while away in. His head ached, lingering from his nightmare which hadn't faded from his memory, burned in like an afterimage so that even when he closed his eyes he could still see the silhouettes. The dead and glossy eyes.
He shook his head, turning over in bed. It felt empty without Argos, the dog being handed over to Luna for the time being. It had been only through a stroke of luck that he hadn't been discovered, and he couldn't risk it again. He missed him, and it stung to hand over his invisibility cloak, the only thing he had of his father, but he trusted Luna.
The witch had become, overnight it seemed, a valued friend. For some time they seemed to exist together, sitting side by side in blissful understanding. They never sought each other out in the way friends would, they did not deign to share their innermost thoughts or beliefs, dreams and desires. They were simply alone, together, and it had been pleasant.
But somewhere at some point, the line had been toed, hopped over. It happened suddenly, and without warning. He wanted to hate himself for it, to believe that he was somehow placing her in danger. But he couldn't bring himself to, his thoughts too jumbled to make head or toe of, Luna's words echoing in his head. 'Everyone has some good. And you might be his good, is all.'
He doubted she would have the same sentiment if she knew the entire truth.
Or, for all he knew, she still might. He had learned not to impose expectations on her.
But her words remained, curling around his mind. The words that said that Tom had cared for him. That despite his bad, he had cared enough for Harry to make sure he was safe and happy for the summer. Every part of him wanted to deny it, to spit upon the very idea. But it was getting harder and harder to categorize it all so neatly; good and bad. The line was being blurred, and he knew that in many ways Tom was objectively a bad person- he had killed Ginny, and would grow up to be Lord Voldemort.
Those were certain facts, black and white.
But he claimed that he had been separated from the creature that would truly embody Voldemort, and that, objectively, had to be true as well. How else would they be able to exist simultaneously?
He claimed that Dumbledore was building an army for a war that was not even on the horizon yet, that Harry was simply a pawn to him. There was a devotion to the older man that would not waver, not entirely. But Dumbledore had still lied to Harry, had tried to keep him in the dark, and that had made his devotion tremble. What else had he hidden from him?
What else did he know about him and his family, only to decide it was not important enough to tell him?
But Tom knew, and he cared enough to get Harry to demand the truth. And he cared enough to give Harry a home when others had only given him a closet.
He remembered the day that seemed so long ago, like an entire lifetime had passed in between. He held the letter in his hands, the envelope that had been addressed to him. Harry Potter. The cupboard under the stairs.
They had known enough of his life at Hogwarts to know he slept beneath the stairs, and yet, they did nothing except send more letters.
Why hadn't anything been done then? Why was Tom the first and only one to find a problem with that?
If good and bad was a matter of perspective, than Tom certainly did look more favorable in the moment, Harry begrudgingly admitted, only for his thoughts to run in circles once more.
'But he killed Ginny.'
'No,' a voice in the back of his head chimed in, cruel and taunting. 'You did.'
He pulled his pillow, rolling it over his head as if it would somehow muffle the discord within him. If Tom had been correct that he and Voldemort deviated from some fixed point in time, than there was no definitive way to know that he had hurt someone other than Ginny.
And it was a sin that Harry shared equal part of.
If Tom was bad, than Harry was no better.
He groaned audibly, wishing to force the thought from his mind. He hated the buoying, the constant back and forth. It had been so much easier when he had known for certain that Tom was bad, when he could firmly believe without doubt that Tom did not care for anyone or anything, least of all Harry. But he cared enough to give Harry a home and the selfish part of Harry had been piqued by the idea. The selfish part wanted to toss all his morals and his respect for the Weasleys out the bloody window in favor of a proper bed and a summer spent lackadaisically lounging in the sun.
He wanted to push the thoughts from his mind, to think of anything else, but his thoughts would then turn to that of his dream. It had seemed so real that he could remember with perfect clarity the sound his fangs made as they sunk into flesh and bone. So real that he could feel the heat of the fire, sinking into him. And the voice. The familiar yet forgotten voice..
He had considered telling Luna about it but decided against it in the end. He had already worried her enough, there was no need for him to start rambling about chilling voices and men named Wormtail. She didn't need to shoulder the weight of his grief.
But, try as he might, he couldn't shake a feeling of impending danger. There was the thrum of adrenaline, lighting his nerves on fire, making him anxious and unable to settle in his own skin.
He flopped over onto his other side.
He needed to tell someone, he knew, if only to ease the feel of lead as it plummeted in his gut. But who would even care?
Tom cared, he knew. No matter how perverse or twisted his motives, Tom did care. And he would no doubt like to hear from Harry, even if it was for a dream that wouldn't fade. He was constantly vying for his attention after all.
But how was Harry to even contact him? He knew nothing about where he lived or what he did, preferring to err on the side of ignorance.
Before he could talk himself out of it, he was sliding off the bed and turning to his trunk, digging within it's contents until he found one of the many letters that he had saved. There was no return address, though he wasn't surprised. Tom was no fool, much as Harry hated to admit.
He tore it open, only to furrow his brows and frown. The parchment within the envelope was blank- not so much as a splotch of ink staining it.
If it had been anyone else, in any other situation, he might have tossed it, summing it up to a mistake. He would have simply forgotten about it. But this was Tom Riddle, and Harry knew better.
With a sigh, he grabbed a spare bottle of ink and a quill, settling into his bed with the parchment on his lap.
'This is a bad idea,' he said to himself, even as he uncapped the well of ink, dipping the brass nib of his quill into it. 'I should walk away while I'm ahead. There is no good to Riddle, and I'm deluding myself.'
And yet, for reasons he could not understand, he wrote on the page a tentative 'hello?'
The ink saturated the page, seeping in and fading just as Harry knew it would. It did not take long for a new line of text to bubble upward, ink forming the familiar elegant script-
Harry swallowed, trying to stopper the voice within him telling him that this was a terrible, dreadful, awful idea.
'You've finally opened one of my letters.'
He could imagine Tom sitting before a desk, smirking as if he won some sort of victory, and he nearly tossed the letter back into the trunk if only to wipe the smug look of satisfaction off his face. But he took a steadying breath, writing, 'I've had an unusual dream that I can't shake.'
'Oh? What about?'
And so he told him. Of the voice that made his blood run cold and the man named Wormtail. Of the woman with sunken, glassy eyes. And he was surprised by how easily it all shifted, how natural it felt in that moment to be talking to Tom. It was for a moment as if the events last year had never happened, as if Ginny had never been killed and there had been nothing to craft a divide between him and Tom.
He was surprised by how much he had missed it.
When he finished describing his dream, he set his quill down, flexing the muscles in his hand. The beginning of his text had already disappeared, the center dim and fading faster. He twisted his shirt in his hand nervously, a worrying ache settling in his head. It should have felt better to talk about the dream, but instead it only felt worse, his stomach flipping and twisting anxiously. Remembering it had only made the the memory of it more vibrant and vivid, and the word master hung in the air like the harbinger of something evil and wicked.
'What if...' his thoughts trailed off as Tom wrote back, his words slanted in the way they did when he was in a rush, Harry hating that he knew something so intimate of the young Lord Voldemort.
'You're certain the man was called Wormtail?'
Of course he was. It was such a strange name, how on earth could Harry have remembered it incorrectly? He said as much, sitting back on his heels when he was done. He folded his hands in front of him, chewing his lip in thought. Seconds were drawn out, feeling longer than Harry ever recalled them feeling. An eternity had passed before Tom finally wrote back, the words plummeting in Harry's chest and dragging him down.
'I don't think it was a dream, Harry.'
He had not thought it possible for written words to be laced with such foreboding. There had been a part of him that had been weary of the clarity of it all, of the strangeness yet familiarity. But the confirmation from Tom- a man too smart for his own good- all at once made Harry certain that he was correct. It was not a dream.
But then what was it? A vision?
Of the past, present or future?
How had he been granted access; why had he been?
The questions circled in his mind, but before he could bring his quill to the parchment to ask Tom of his thoughts, the man had already written back.
'I'll be perfectly honest with you, I believe the other man in your dream to be Voldemort. And that what you saw was a window into his life at this very moment.'
Harry stared at the words, his gaze hard and unyielding even as the sheen of the wet ink shimmered before dulling, sinking into the page, fading, fading, fading...
He read them over and over again, four times in total before they were gone; not even the impression remained. The last time he had seen Voldemort, he had been a parasite, buried beneath the turban worn by Professor Quirrell. He had no form of his own, just a mass of energy and magic and whatever was necessary to keep someone bound to this earth when the earth had done all it could to expel them from it. But his voice...
That same cold and pitched voice, the one from his dream, he now knew, was certain of it.
But why had he been given the glimpse into his life? Why now had he been thrust forward and become an unwilling spectator to the cruel deeds done at his hand?
He was stirred from his thoughts by the prompting of Tom, large and bold words curling on the page before him. 'Harry?' It was written hasty and messy, and Harry wondered how many times Tom had tried to capture his attention before he had finally noticed.
'Sorry,' he wrote, his quill scraping noisily over the parchment. 'Do you know why that could happen?' Any sort of apprehension or fear or anger he might have felt had been abandoned in that moment, and he settled into the friendship he and Tom had once shared, like a thick comforter in a bleak and unforgiving winter.
He was smart, and whether or not he was telling the truth about Voldemort being the creature that remained of him or just a more advanced version of himself, he was still a fraction of the man. And who better to understand the Dark Lord than, well, the Dark Lord?
'I'm not sure just yet. I've been doing some research that isn't wholly complete on its own, but obviously this will have to take priority. With no understanding of how or why this works just yet, we must be cautious. If you have access to him, there's the possibility he'll have access to you,' he wrote, making Harry's insides twist uncomfortably. It was a possibility he had not considered, too much to process in a single moment. His throat tightened, his mouth suddenly dry and aching. Could Voldemort see him talking to Luna? See him talking to Tom and plotting against him?
He shifted, the unsettling realization that he was being watched washing over him, making his flesh prickle. He tightened the curtains around his bed, as if doing so might somehow prevent Voldemort from seeing him through whatever connection they were bound by.
Turning his attention to the parchment, he wrote, 'What do we do then? Until you can complete your research?" It did not occur to him that had said 'we', taking comfort where there was once rage that Tom would not abandon him. That he would be, annoyingly and thankfully, steadfast. It did not occur to him that he was implicitly trusting Tom.
'Keep this parchment on you. I'll write to you if anything turns up. Until then, wherever he is, he's too weak to do anything, so you're not in any immediate danger, but there's no doubt he's got something in the works. Be weary of everyone and their loyalties, and if you have any more dreams or if anything is out of the ordinary, tell me at once.'
Perhaps it was the authority with which he spoke, but Harry agreed, a sense of relief filling him that Tom was not only taking Harry's concerns with his dreams seriously, but was genuinely concerned with helping him. And he tried to shove it all down within him, how much he hated that Tom had been the source of such relief.
The man was like a parasite, but instead of living on the back of his head and poisoning him from the inside out, he lived within his brain, slowly festering away, unnoticed.
-xXx-
Tom set the quill down and ran a hand through his hair, tidying it uncharacteristically. Harry had just bid him good bye, followed with a tentative and strained thanks. And now it was just him and his thoughts and the pressing weight in his brain that Voldemort was far more reckless than he could have accounted for.
It was indignant, a disgrace, that this man had taken his name and identity only to run rampant with it, tear it asunder with his foolhardiness. It was hardly the legacy Tom had hoped to forge- a legacy consisting of being brought down by a mudblood and her infant son; his followers either locked away for what remained of their wretched lives or turned against him at the first sign of his defeat. It was a far cry from the loyal masses who would lay their lives down for him, fall to his feet. It was a far cry from the kingdom of bones and altars of worship that he had envisioned. An immortal being, he was more than lowly muggles, more even than the finest witches and wizards. He was a god.
'And how the gods have fallen,' he thought bitterly, rising from where he sat to fetch himself some more tea. Somewhere along the lines, sometime after having entrapped himself in the diary, he had faltered. Perhaps it was his sordid dealings in dark magic, or the constant chipping away of his soul only to lock the fragments away, but at some point Voldemort had morphed and shifted into something other than what he had always intended. Tom was pragmatic to a fault, and more than willing to sacrifice what was necessary to achieve his goals. The lives of others, his former identity, and his looks (though he would be remiss to say that they weren't advantageous).
But his sanity had never been on the table. His calculation and ability to think ten steps ahead were not up for trade.
And yet, all of it had been forfeited. Lord Voldemort had been as divorced from Tom as he could be, yet intrinsically tied together by virtue of who he had once been. It was a disgrace, and his rage was barely tethered at how distorted his future had become.
And even when he was without a wand, when he was nothing more than withered shell, he was still preparing for something- no doubt a final and desperate attempt to return to a proper body. If the details from Harry's dream had been correct, and if Tom's assumption was right, than he had even made another horcrux, whittling away at the sliver of soul once more.
It had been the most logical conclusion of course, as Harry had not seen through Voldemort's eyes but from the eyes of a creature below him, a familiar. And the shared soul between them could act as a catalyst, the vehicle through which one could observe the other. It was the most sensible solution, but he couldn't very well tell Harry that. Not yet, at least. He may have reached out to Tom, a fact which made him smirk with barely contained glee, but he was still a Gryffindor. Dumbledore's pet.
If he knew that he harbored a piece of Voldemort's soul inside him, he would do something foolish, like through himself off a tower to ensure the dark wizard's defeat. That would certainly do Tom no good. A waste of a perfectly good horcrux.
No, it was a precarious situation. Give too much information to Harry, and he could do something righteous in the name of the greater good. Give too little information, and Harry could twist his own rhetoric onto him, compare him to Dumbledore and distrust him once more for withholding something so vital.
He sighed, raising the kettle and pouring it into his cup, steam billowing up and around him. The tea leaves unfurled, plump with water. He was in for a long night, abandoning his research of his future- Voldemort's past- in favor of researching horcruxes. Living horcruxes were unprecedented as far as he knew, making it all the more taxing. It should have been exhilarating to wander into unknown territory, be the first to study something so unique and intriguing. Instead, it was exhausting, knowing that Harry's safety- his own horcrux- was on the line should he fail.
If this was what it was like to care about others, he couldn't see the charm of it.
With a fresh cup of tea, he returned to his chair, scraping it along the floor as he ungracefully settled in, several tomes opened before him. Settling the cup into its saucer, he reached for the slim journal, the leather cover the color of a deep wine and wrinkled from its constant use, the edges of the pages gilded in silver. The unlined pages were cluttered in his writing, neat and small and filling the entirety of the paper, from the top to the bottom. With a sigh, he began to reread the quick notes he had made of all the details of Harry's dream, taking a part each aspect, each spoken word remembered, and analyzing it. Searching for any clues to what the former Dark Lord and his pathetic servant were plotting.
Voldemort may have had fifty years of knowledge and power, as well as a once grand army, but Tom was hardly concerned by it. Perhaps it was his arrogance, but he had his own mounting advantages against the man. A wand, and a clear and untarnished mind. Voldemort was too reckless to even see Harry for what he was, and would no doubt relish the idea of unknowingly destroying his own soul.
But even more than that, Voldemort did not know of Tom's existence. That his own self- an arguably better, more full and charming and persuasive version- was wandering the earth at this very moment. And that Harry was slowly leaning more and more into him, something that even the more devout of Voldemort's followers would soon do as well, in time.
With careful planning, and in due time, Tom would have everything. The wand, the horcruxes, Harry, the army.
No, he wasn't very concerned about Voldemort at all. In the end, he would be nothing.
-xXx-
The rest of the year passed without another dream, much to Harry's relief. He had carried the enchanted parchment on him, just as Tom had instructed. But he never removed it from where it sat at the bottom of his rucksack, soft and curling from being pressed beneath his textbooks. He had not spoken to Tom since that afternoon, and Tom had not reached out to him. It was, he decided, better that way, regardless of whatever kinship had been forged between them in their shared sin.
But the desire to reach out to him had been great, Harry's will weakening only to resolve moments before he could write to him, the nib of his quill saturated in ink. It was confusing, the duality of it all. He longed for the relationship they had once had, the ease that had been there before the world had been turned upside down. But he knew that they could never slip into such a role so easily, not when the distrust had created a chasm between them.
A part of him, the same small sliver that seemed to turn on him at every opportunity, whispered to him that he was alone in this world without Tom, that without him he had nobody. He was nobody.
It simply wasn't true though, he knew. He had Luna and Argos, the two meaning more to him in the few months they had shared than he thought plausible. It had pained him to leave the dog behind, even with the knowledge that the house elves would feed him over the summer, leave food out for him in the garden. He hadn't wanted to part for even the summer knowing full well that once he did, the voice would win.
He would be truly alone then, the spiders in his cupboard not the best of company or companionship.
No, the desire to speak to Tom had never been so great as it was in that moment, with Harry sitting upon a bench outside King's Cross station, shivering as the day faded to the veil of night. The artificial glow of light poles replacing the warm and pink light of the sun- vanished from sight- the sky now a thick blanket of darkness.
The train, having brought him back to London for the beginning of summer, had dropped him off at noon time, as it did the two years prior. And yet, the Dursleys had been nowhere in sight, the young wizard settling on a bench with no other option but to wait and hope that they were simply tardy, delaying the moments until they would welcome home their burden of a nephew. That had been hours ago, and his stomach growled with hunger, his breakfast that morning all but forgotten, and his tongue felt dry and weightless in his mouth. He had no money- no muggle money, at least- and he had long since given up hope that the Dursleys would arrive.
He sighed, running a hand through his hair as he stood, knees cracking. Hedwig hooted, flapping her wings as if to demand freedom from her cage and he frowned, unlocking the mechanism.
"Fly ahead without me. I'll meet you there," he said, pulling the door of her cage open.
She blinked, her golden eyes wide, as she poked her head out. She seemed hesitant to leave him, but he ran his fingers along her head and down her back to coax her. "Go on, I'll be fine. I'll call the Knight bus again."
Reassured, she hopped out, stretched her wings impressively before taking off, the breeze causing Harry to shiver more fiercely. He watched her as she flew through the sky, becoming smaller and smaller with every second, relishing in the freedom. When she had become so small he could raise his hand and cover her with his thumb, he grabbed hold of his trunk and the empty cage, trudging along to a more discrete alley that he may summon the Knight Bus without incident. He had no muggle money, but more than enough for a ride on the magical transport.
Though this time, he would do without the cocoa.
-xXx-
Privet drive was quiet when Harry arrived, his stomach moving freely about his abdomen as he stepped onto solid ground with trembling legs. The world felt as if it were shifting around him, he the axis to which the earth spun, and the bus had driven off even as he wavered unsteadily, blinking frantically in the hopes it might settle his vision.
"Next time I'll walk," he muttered below his breath, placing a steadying hand on his trunk for support. When the dizziness faded and his eyesight no longer swam before him, he could see the Dursley home, all the windows dark despite the relatively early hour of the evening. It was a Friday, which normally meant the small and stern family had no matters to attend to the following day- no school or work or even church. As such, they often took their time retiring, with Dudley even staying up into the wee hours of the morning.
Strange, Harry thought, pulling his trunk alongside him and walking down the darkened street, television sets shining through the windows of neighboring homes. A child shouting excitedly broke the silence, curfew momentarily forgotten as summer came to stay. He watched as a car drove by, slowing to look at the funny sight of a skinny boy pulling a trunk that was practically the same size as him, an empty birdcage clanging noisily against it as he rolled over the grooves in the sidewalk.
He came to a stop outside of number four, blinking curiously at the sight of an empty driveway. A sinking feeling settled into him, weighing and dragging him down as the realization that he had been left behind clicked into place.
He wasn't quite forgotten, he knew, as he was sure the Dursleys had been well aware of his return when they left. He considered for a moment that maybe they had at last gone out to fetch him from King's Cross just as he was arriving. But he dismissed it, cynical and certain without knowing how that they had strategically abandoned him.
'You're alone, Harry,' the voice whispered to him as he pulled his trunk to the steps that led to the door, locked, and sat on the stoop. 'You've got no one now, not Luna or the Dursleys or even arachnids. They've left you. Perhaps they're spending the weekend out of town, visiting an old friend or family. Perhaps they've left on holiday and won't be home until next week or even later.'
He tried to ignore the cruel words, but it was of no use. Cruel though they were, they were also true. He had been abandoned. He was alone. And there was no telling when they could return, how long Harry would be forced to wait for them. He couldn't use magic to unlock the door- it would hardly be of any use to get himself expelled and spend more than just the summers with them.
He considered breaking in, the old-fashioned muggle way with a rock and his hand wound within his jumper. But that would be even worse, if possible, the alarm company alerting the local police to the break in. He imagined what it might be like to be arrested, sitting within the police car as the siren whooped and the lights flashed. He would be stuck in a detention center until whenever the Dursleys fancied their vacation over with, and even then would be forced to pay to replace the window.
Hedwig came to sit beside him, dipping her head to tug playfully at the loose threads of his jumper. He settled a hand over her back, the feathers soft and thick over the fragile feel of her bones. He did not know how much time had passed, but he counted it in the lights as they flicked off in the windows of neighboring homes. He counted it in the night sky as the stars shifted and moved over top him. The pain in his stomach had vanished now, a hollow numbness that was easier to ignore.
Of course the Durselys wouldn't want him there. Just as Tom had told him, they were still irate about what had happened with Marge, perhaps fearful of him even. Though they had never wanted him there to begin with, merely tolerating his presence despite their utter hatred of him. It wasn't fair.
He hated the thought of it- it seemed so childish and ridiculous to even say- but it wasn't fair. Why did they keep him there if only to bully and abuse and torment him? Why did they not turn him over to the proper services the moment he arrived on their doorstep if all they intended to do was to lock him within the closet?
There were plenty of childless couples who might have fostered him, would have been kinder to him. And yet, he was punished for no discernible reason to be stuck with a family that reviled him. They didn't want him, and the feeling was quite mutual.
But someone did want him, he thought, the idea coming to him unbidden. Tom had offered him a place in his home for the summer, a place where he wouldn't be locked out until the night turned cold and dark and the moon hung high in the sky. A place where he would be wanted.
'No,' he thought, shaking his head as if doing so might dispel the very notion from his mind. But he was unable to, the idea unfurling before him, tempting him.
The little voice had returned now, whispering to him that he was better off, that he deserved to have what everyone else had. Why was he denied the right to a home? Why was he allowed to suffer on a doorstep at midnight?
'But he killed Ginny,' he countered against the voice, the knowledge heavy and weighted in his mind.
'So did you. There's no sense being a martyr. He cares for you, offered his protection. You told him of your dream and he listened,' the voice retaliated, growing stronger, louder among the sound of crickets and wind rustling through manicured trees. 'It would only be two months. Besides, what if his claims about Voldemort being separate from him are true? He could be a great ally, if you let him.'
Another voice came to him at that moment, the kind and sweet voice of Luna. 'Well, they can't be all bad. You could be his good.'
When all was said and done, Harry might have said it was because he was too tired and cold to properly argue. That he had grown dizzy and lethargic and was simply desperate for some comfort; food and a bed and warmth. And even as he cursed himself, whispered an unheard apology to Ginny and her family, he couldn't stop himself as he opened his trunk, digging through it until he found his rucksack.
With any hope, Tom would still be awake.
-xXx-
Arabella Figg tutted to herself as she opened the door to her home, her teeth digging so fiercely into her lip she worried she might chew right through. She should have inquired about him sooner, the moment she suspected something was off.
She had just come back from visiting the Dursleys, after nearly a month of not seeing a single sight of Harry Potter. She knew the family had gone on vacation- visiting some family in the country, they claimed- beginning the day Harry returned from school. They returned a week later, and in the weeks that followed she had seen no other child other than the horrid one, Dudley, milling about the home. Petunia tended to her own gardens, and they had seemingly hired a company to trim the bushes and clip the lawn. A van had been parked out front when they had had the exterior painting touched up, the shutters a cleaner and blander shade of beige than they had been before. Vernon brought out the trash nightly, cleaned his own car on Saturday afternoons.
All chores that Harry had otherwise done, the boy seemingly raised with shears and a hose in his hand.
She had asked about him in passing, received vague platitudes to his well being. "He's not feeling well," Vernon had said one morning on his way to work, chuckling nervously. "Went to a new school this year and came back with a host of illnesses."
"Oh, he's fine. He just can't be bothered to leave the house," he had said on another occasion.
She began to grow doubtful of their claims, but had decided not to jump to conclusions. They were by no means the friendly sort, but she didn't quite think they would resort to something truly wretched like selling or abandoning the boy. Still, there was a feeling she couldn't quite shake, and one evening she finally headed over, a freshly made tart as an offering.
"I didn't want to waste the fruit, but I certainly don't need a whole tart for myself," she had explained when Petunia blinked at the dessert, her mouth opening and closing sheepishly. But Figg ignored the obvious discomfort, smiling sincerely at the thin and sharp woman.
She invited her in after a second of hesitation, had made her some tea and invited her out onto the patio where Vernon and Dudley joined them. A bit of exploitation on her part- the Durselys were ever concerned about their reputation and it would be quite rude to turn her away- but it had worked like a charm and halfway through the inane drivel of Vernon's work stories punctuated by Dudley's rude groans of boredom, she set her tea cup down and asked.
"Is Harry about? I'm sure he would love some dessert."
It was as if she had something outrageously vulgar, or as if she had suddenly sprouted a second head and the family was too afraid to say something about it, eyes turning wide. Petunia pinched her lips, looking as if she had just sucked on a lemon and Vernon chuckled, his face turning blotchy as he dabbed at it with a napkin.
"He's actually gone to stay with a friend this summer. Left this morning."
She stared at him for a second, pursing her lips in thought. "Well. Good for him, then. Haven't seen much of him this summer and I'm glad he's enjoying it."
The conversation that followed was stilted, Petunia quiet and all anxious energy while Vernon had suddenly grown very impatient, looking to his watch at intervals before standing brusquely and saying that he and the family were to be meeting a friend out for dinner in half an hour and it was lovely to see you, and thank you so for the tart it was delicious. Until next time, then.
One need not be a legilimens to know that they were lying, though about what she did not know. Surely they would not be so cruel as to allow harm to befall their nephew? She admonished herself, berating her decision to wait so long. Dumbledore would have told her if he knew of any plans for Harry to accompany someone else during the summer. How long had he been gone for? Had he really been there all along until recently, simply flying below the radar? Had he been there at all?
Where was he?
Her stomach was heavy, and she feared the worse- she couldn't help it! Black was still nowhere to be found, evading capture with the expert ease of a criminal. And after the death of the young girl at Hogwarts- still unknown, whoever or whatever her attacker had been- it was hard to deny that there was something sinister brewing, like a storm that hung low on the horizon.
She swallowed her worries- it would do no good- and grabbed a fistful of floo powder.
Wherever Harry was, Dumbledore would find him, she was sure.
-xXx-
Author's Note: I know the preview in the last chapter said that Dumbledore would meet with an Order member but I cut it last minute. But don't worry! The Order will make an appearance soon in the case of the Missing Harry Potter!
Also: Voldemort's plots reach fruition, and Harry returns to Beauxbatons where a friendly competition is brewing...